Those are really great pics, ses - how cool that you were in that area! Do you know if there is that underground pool that Ralston and the girls jump into?
Btw, a couple of questions about that scene, questions for anyone: did they jump/drop in with all their gear (camera etc.)?
If not, where did they leave their stuff and why did they leave it? I assumed there must be some of the geography I wasn't getting, but I was wishing I had a better sense of the lay of the land. Also,
could you just drop down into the pool like that without bumping, scraping, or generally bruising your body on the cliff walls on the way down? (I don't mean to sound as if I'm complaining - I think the scene was effective in setting up Aron's character - his energy and charisma.)
Really liked the film overall. I wondered, going into it, if I’d be a bit annoyed by the music video style and quick cuts and split screens that I’d heard about, but that aspect of the film didn’t bother me at all. It was in keeping, I think, with the kind of character that we were supposed to be seeing and did see, in Ralston. I really loved that high energy opening, Ralston getting his stuff, and driving, and sleeping, and then hitting the trail on his bike. (And I think I am generally willing to give Boyle his choices; I have a lot of good will towards him, I guess. I think I’m just taken with him as a person and with the style he is drawn to - I absolutely love listening to interviews with him -his own energy and good will towards seemingly everyone is hard to resist!)
I loved the choice to keep the story centered on Ralston - rather than trying to fit in the stories that were happening outside, viz. his co-worker(s) missing him at work, his parents, and friends slowly realizing he was missing, trying to figure out where he was, etc. That outside stuff is fascinating, but keeping it out of the film here worked perfectly.
I also thought that while Boyle could have used Ralston talking into his camera even more (because from what I’ve read, seen, heard, Ralston did talk to the camera a lot more than we see in the film), but Boyle chose not to include more of that, and so we’re not
told as much of his thinking and feelings as much as we could have been. I appreciated that. We do have the flashbacks/visions, I guess, to fill in some of what he’s thinking/feeling, and I do agree, that those didn’t work for me quite as well, but what we do have that is incredibly compelling is Franco’s face - where we’re tracing his emotions and realizations without being told what they are. When we do get to the arm-breaking-cutting scene, it’s not explained to us that he’s decided to do that - he just goes for it. So much there could have been expository, I think - and I was glad that it wasn’t. We are very much of and in the moment there.
And for all of the heavy-handedness with the flashbacks, etc. and with the very end, I found the film incredibly, alternately, intense and moving - at one point, I realized my heart had been pounding hard for quite some time (and that hasn’t happened for me with a film since . . . I don’t know), and then relief at the end was so immense, that yeah, I was definitely weepy and willing to let the film be as sentimental as it pleased. The end of that morning-show scene, too, as you mention, ses - Franco is so, so good there. His face. Wow.
It’s interesting, ses, that you bring up the water - one of the friends we were with last night said almost exactly what you said (barring the bit about being a microbiologist
) - that it wasn’t the arm scene that got to her but the drinking of the horrible water. (I am really curious about that, too - was there really a pool like that there? I thought that there wasn’t . . . but it was a while ago that I saw the news story/doc about Ralston - has anyone read Ralston’s book?)
The movie’s strongest point is, ultimately, Franco’s performance - but I do, also, like Boyle’s style - I think it works for this story.
And I generally favor films with complex themes and ideas - and this wasn’t one of the those films - but it is, I think, still great.
Speaking of the movie’s ideas, do the rest of you think there is a possible schizophrenia at its heart? The overt, heavy-handed idea is - “we need people, we need each other, community over the solitary individual” etc. - but the truth is, Ralston did basically get himself out of there - on his own. He conquered the rock, in a way. He did get help at the very end, and we could speculate that he would have died trying to hike out, but hasn’t the Ralston story, like a
Touching the Void kind of story, really captivated people because what he did, by himself, is so incredible? Boyle talks about the film as being a testament to the human spirit - and he’s not talking about the triumph of the communal human spirit, is he? Isn’t it the triumph of the individual against the odds? A triumph of individual survival? Am I wrong in thinking that there is a kind of tension in what the film is communicating? Can it be both about its overt message of “we need people” and also about the triumph of the individual without contradicting itself? I’m not sure I find this tension (if there is one) problematic, in terms of how much I like the film, I just find it really interesting - because I kind of think Boyle wants (and maybe we all want this) to have it both ways, to have both a rugged individualism and a celebration of community.